Page 63 of A Sea of Vows and Silence (The Naiads of Juile #3)

Selena

T he cavern wall disappeared behind Pheolix.

The sigh of the wind, the bite of the cold.

The scent of mud and stone, the taste of mountain wind.

Everything vanished except for him.

Pheolix suddenly overwhelmed my senses. The soap on his skin, the warmth of his body, the taste of his mouth, taunting me from a mere breath away.

“Lie to me and tell me you don’t love me,” I murmured against his lips.

“I don’t love you,” he whispered back.

I leaned back, bracing myself over his shoulders, looking him hard in the eye. “Now tell me the truth.”

Pheolix’s hand snaked around the back of my neck, wrapping the length of my hair into his fist at my nape. “I’ve loved you since the moment my lips touched yours. Ten years ago.”

“Eleven,” I corrected, but the word was a hum inside his mouth. He yanked me into him, prying my lips apart with his, his kiss a hot lash against my tongue. He released his hold just to slip his fingers through my hair, gripping the sides of my face as though I might flee.

I pressed into him. Thighs, hips, chest. My open jaw ground deeply into his, and he shuddered against the rough demand of it.

Fire ignited, flames blazing across me, burying me under the heat and smoke of his hands and mouth.

Fire was a thing to fear. But here in the cave, fire's hair was red, its mouth was decadent, and all I wanted was to burrow myself into its warmth until it burned me alive, searing its kiss into my flesh and bone.

Grit mangled his voice as he moaned softly.

I pushed my weight onto my knees, leaning further into him.

My hips revolved slowly in his lap, testing all the firm curves that lay across his thighs, teasing more of that moan from him.

That thick, heady scent of desire swept through cognition, though I wasn’t sure if it was his or mine.

I opened my eyes once to look at him.

Once.

He gazed back at me, eyelids half closed, drunk and delirious on the taste of my tongue.

I never wanted that look from anyone else again.

He said he’d fought to keep his mind, but I’d gladly throw my own away to stay here with him.

Perhaps it was already gone. I gave a small, wild laugh at the idea, and Pheolix’s eyes darkened.

He wrapped his hand around my throat, pulling me back to him.

Something snapped between us. Cracked open like a strike of lightning against a mountainside, rending stone and earth apart, the consequence of its touch more permanent than anything found between the rifts of time.

His teeth grazed my tongue. I bit his lip. His hands gripped my hips hard enough to bruise. I rolled my weight into his lap.

Hunger burst within me like the bolt of thunder that follows the crash of light, a rattle in my chest drumming through my fingertips. I grabbed the collar of his shirt and tore it off him.

He swore under his breath. Then aimed a rough kiss at the hollow of my throat, nipping with teeth and tongue. A sharp hiss escaped my lips, but I arched my back, thrusting into him.

The next thing I knew, I was on my back.

Buttons popped from the pleasure servant’s shirt as he wrenched it off me.

His hand delved under my bra, rough and demanding, shoving it up and out of his way.

He swore again, though this time he dragged the word across my skin as his mouth followed his hand, the filthy sound of it burning into my ribcage.

My knees wrapped around his hips, and he found the belt below my navel, unbuckling it hard enough to rock my body to the side.

Then grabbed the top of my pants and ripped them down.

I kicked them off my ankles, suddenly enraged they were there in the first place.

My nails raked his bare chest, muscles solid under my palms. White lines trailed my fingertips all the way to his abdomen, disappearing into the tattooed lines that framed his sides.

I wrangled with the ties of his pants, my chest heaving with every breath as he pressed sharp, open-mouthed kisses into my sternum.

The heat of his breath lay over my skin, trapped between my breasts.

My mouth opened with a wide gulp of air as his thumb slid over the thin strip of cotton between my legs, sending a small shockwave deep through my abdomen. I abandoned his ties.

We both froze.

He lifted his head, meeting my eyes. I panted into the air, the coarse edge of his stubble-lined jaw a quiet chafe over my nipple. Liquid puddled in my belly, hot and bright and vexed at the sudden delay.

Gray eyes fixed into mine, whispering a question in the dawning morning.

Pheolix might have been haunted by uncertainty. But I’d spent a year plagued by the aftermath of indecision, and I refused to let myself hesitate again.

I reached between us, twining my hand in his. Then guided him beneath that small stretch of fabric to the heat trapped below. Let my fingertips press against his, branding a smooth and lazy circle into my center.

His breath thickened with gravel as his eyes glazed down my throat and over my body. My spine lengthened, my legs dropping to the sides. My hand abandoned his, leaving him to work alone. Fire dripped from the pads of his fingers and into my core, a molten bath sinking below my flesh .

My eyes closed. My fingers delved into his hair. My sense of time evaporated with the air in my lungs, cast away in short and heavy gasps. Pheolix propped himself on an elbow, nailing my leg to the floor, watching me dissolve to liquid like butter tossed in a fired pan.

A stretch pulsed low in my abdomen, sharp and rough and smooth all at once.

I chanced a glance at him as he slid a finger in.

His dark eyes locked onto mine, predatory and greedy.

Pressure wrapped around his touch, aching and twisting, sending an incendiary wave through my blood.

It surged and climbed like a riptide, wickedly possessive of my body and pleasure, and I arched at its call.

A sly grin spread slowly across his mouth. Once again, that hooded imp, pockets full of tricks. “Come on, heiress,” he murmured, his voice throaty and wild. “I want to hear it.”

“Hear what?” I rasped.

“The noise you’ll make when I take you there.”

The burn of his voice elicited a sudden flare of shyness from me. Mouth drawn, chest gasping, I rolled my head to face the other direction.

“I don’t think so.” Pheolix took my chin, pulling me back, reaching to press a slow, smoldering kiss into my mouth. A torch against my mouth. His fingers blazed a scalding emblem into my core. “You can’t hide from me now. You wanted this, Selena.”

I’d sought my own climax before, alone in bed while the palace slept.

I knew what built deep under my skin, what happened when it filled and spilled over.

But I wasn’t ready for the violent release that plummeted through my blood, burning through every inch of flesh he touched.

I shook and shivered against him. He gave a dark laugh, the sound rumbling into my side, husky and gruff and somehow like velvet.

Cold wind swept across my body. I shivered again. Pheolix’s hand continued to roam and tease, coaxing tension back into me. My hips lifted and rolled with the movement of his hand, churning to his cadence .

“I didn’t hear it,” he said, nuzzling his nose under my ear.

A growl from my own throat razed the air, goaded by the taunt in his words.

I rolled onto my side, shuffling his pants down his hips and taking his hard length into my mouth with an air that verged on hostile.

His breath guttered with surprise, and he fell back into our cloaks, hand cupping the back of my head.

I watched as his weight settled with something between strain and leisure, his skull rocking backwards, the underside of his jaw square and shadowed in the cavern light.

If he wanted that noise so badly, he could make it.

I’d make him make it.

The taut muscles in his stomach contracted.

Without warning, he sat up, grabbed me, and spun me around.

I reached to catch myself on the dirt floor, but he pulled me back instead, tethering me against his chest with a hand across my sternum.

His opposite hand delved between my thighs, and the stretch of his fingers returned, gliding in and out as I melted in his lap, my legs putty over his.

Pheolix’s arm wrapped around my shoulders, guiding me down until I sank fully onto him. His groan echoed across the cavern walls.

The world vibrated in color. Ripples danced in the shallow pool of rainwater beside us.

The line between stark light and cool shadow ripened at the cavern mouth as the sun crested the mountain peaks.

I let my head fall backwards on Pheolix’s shoulder as we moved together.

He leaned in, his breath loud and heavy in my ears, but I loved the raw sound of it.

His teeth and lips skimmed my neck, tongue licking away his own bites.

He moved lazily enough to make my head spin.

I couldn’t think beyond the roll and grind of his hips, the building tension and ebbing patience in my legs, seeking that burning high again.

I tried to push against him, tried to entice him to move faster, but his hand tightened at the base of my throat, holding me where he wanted .

“I do have good dreams,” he breathed in my ear. “And this is one. Dreams of how you’d feel wrapped around me. I intend to enjoy you as slowly as I please.”

I turned my head to answer him as he hit a sudden and particularly sensitive note under my flesh, and my mouth parted in a sudden gasp, my voice all but lost in a silent moan. Nose to nose, he lifted his hand to my chin, locking me in place while his mouth captured mine.

Even if I wanted to move, I don’t think I could have.

He held me more securely than ropes tied to a wall, moored by vines and gnarled roots.

His opposite arm wrapped around my waist, snaking between my legs, and at the sweep of his fingers, my entire body lifted as though pulled taught by a string.

A deep rumble grated against my shoulder as he repeated the move, winding me tighter and tighter.

Until suddenly, I broke.

I cried out as the waves of it threatened to bowl me over, every tendon yanked tight and then cut like the wires of a trap.

My body broke loose for a second time, spasms sending me through a whirlpool of ecstasy, around and around.

He shifted, laying my limp body down, kissing the column of my throat where he’d held me the moment before.

I was vaguely aware of his hands at my thighs, spreading me apart.

But he did, and the drowsy spell that overtook me vanished with a sharp crack.

My hips rose to meet him as he thrusted in. We watched where our bodies joined as he claimed me hard and fast. He gave a sudden lurch, abdomen contracting against mine, his groan sending dark fire into my belly.

We lay there, content as the bright sun climbed above the cavern mouth, ascending through fresh clouds and wind.

I closed my eyes. His heart thrummed softly against my cheek, and I leaned into it.

Let myself sink into it. Down, down, down.

Into the comforting drum of his chest. Fingertips slid across my back, sweeping between my shoulder blades with idle strokes .

My eyelids grew heavy. I didn’t want to sleep. I wasn’t ready. But Pheolix was too warm, the gentle pull of his fingers too lulling. He dropped a kiss into my hair, and I knew he was watching me fight it.

I meant to say something. To incite conversation from him. To keep myself awake with the sound of his voice. But everything began to blend and blur. I fell slowly. Softly. Quietly.